


Red Waters

by 100demons



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce, Tricksters - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-14 14:50:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4568592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His grandmother would have laughed along with them, until tears trickled down her cheeks. It was how the raka wept, hiding sorrow underneath mirth. <i>The waters of Rajmuat are red with the Bright One’s blood</i>, she had once whispered to him, her gnarled hands tangled in his curling black hair, the color his only mark of their shared blood. <i>The seas are a dangerous place, when there is a grieving god.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Waters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morganstern](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganstern/gifts).



The waves that lapped at his bare feet were tinged pink, supposedly from tiny animals that lived in the waters, smaller than could be seen with any eye without the aid of magical sight. During the summer months, Rajmuat’s inns were filled with the drunken dreams of university students, sparks of the Gift glittering at their fingertips, spilling coins across scarred wooden tables. They rose at dawn, groggy-eyed and hungover, stumbling across the shoreline to collect samples as the fishermen laughed and cast their nets.

His grandmother would have laughed along with them, until tears trickled down her cheeks. It was how the raka wept, hiding sorrow underneath mirth. _The waters of Rajmuat are red with the Bright One’s blood_ , she had once whispered to him, her gnarled hands tangled in his curling black hair, the color his only mark of their shared blood. _The seas are a dangerous place, when there is a grieving god._

Taybur uncurled his fingers, a slender copper badge falling from his hands and into the water. It disappeared briefly underneath a curl of white foam, before rising back up to the surface, buoyed up by an undulating wave.

“His blood is yours now, Bright One,” he said, watching as his Captain’s badge drifted away into deeper waters, carried on by an invisible current.

Above him, the Stormwings circled.

 

* * *

 

 

In the coolness of dusk, Taybur sat in the shade cast by the Black God’s temple, and listened. The priests were singing, deep hymnals that made his teeth ache and his bones shiver, keeping time with a prayer drum. Here and there, he caught snatches of chattering children, the sound of a wheel clattering against cobblestones, fruit sellers hawking the last of the day’s wares.

He turned his head to the side, his lips curving up.

“That was clever,” he said, approving. “Using the wind and the noise like that as a cover for your entrance.”

Aly Homewood emerged from the shadows, dressed in the veils of an elderly Carthaki noblewoman, all in shades of gray and starlight. The colors blended in beautifully with the growing darkness.

“I do love an appreciative audience,” she laughed, sweeping aside the gauzy cloth with a toss of her head. “You weren’t followed?”

“After I just paid you a compliment,” Taybur protested, holding his hands up in the night, so that she saw the glitter of his opal ring, etched with magical sigils for silence. “I would be insulted if I didn’t know already you’ve had me tailed since I left the Palace.”

“Well,” Aly glittered, her teeth straight and white as she favored him with a sharp smile, “I’ve found that it can’t hurt to be too careful.”

She settled herself next to him on the bench, taking a moment to adjust her silks so they wouldn’t wrinkle. He let her take her time, watching how her hands smoothed over her thighs, her hips, marking the subtle lines of her hidden weapons.

Unbidden, another smile tugged at his mouth.

“Like what you see?” Aly looked up at him, the line of her throat coquettish.

“I was just thinking of the remarkable craftsmanship of your sheaths,” he said, truthfully. “The blades must be even better.”

“I’ll pass the compliments along,” she said, amusement glinting in her eyes, before her back straightened and it fell away, worn and then discarded like her Carthaki veils. Even now, Taybur couldn’t help but marvel at her self-control that belied her true age, at the way she so easily slid in and out of roles, like a Master Player.

“I received your note.”

“ _Sorrow not, for all shall rest in the Peaceful Realms, in the loving embrace of the Black God._

“ _Forgive, forgive, forgive…_ ”

“Ah,” Taybur said, quietly. “I meant every word. I still do.”

“It will not be easy,” Aly warned, her hands still as they lay clasped on her lap. The fading rays of sunlight burnished her copper hair, bringing out the golden strands. “What we are planning, what this summer will bring…” She paused for a moment, her knuckles whitening. “I’m going to need you to stay as you were, in the Palace. To go to places where the raka cannot and to open doors that may be closed.”

Taybur let out a controlled breath. “I thought as much,” he said, terse. But still, he had hoped, foolishly, wildly, pathetically, for a sword in his hand and life outside of the gray walls.

“Rubinyan and Imajane will attempt a coronation and the position you hold has become even more important. I need a luarin like you on the inside.” Her steel-backed voice then softened a shade.

“Do they suspect anything?”

Taybur crossed his arms over his chest, leaning his head back against the wall. “No,” he said finally, in a low voice. “They think me distracted by grief, clinging to duty for duty’s sake. It is not especially a hard pretense.”

“Damn us all,” Aly swore, turning her head away from him. Above them, lanterns began lighting up in synchrony, without a hand to guide their flames. The firelight cast flickering shadows over Aly’s white face, the purple bruises underneath her tired eyes. “Damn the gods and their games.”

He thought of Dunevon’s pale face, his broken body limp and heavy in his arms.

“Tell me, humble Tortallan lady’s maid Aly Homewood,” he said, slowly, turning the words over on his tongue. “What would you have done?”

She was silent for another long moment, her face falling into an unreadable mask. Her hands lay flat on her hands, perfectly still.

She wore no rings.

“Swear in blood that he would never try for the throne before having him sent off the island, held in trust by another country. Tortall, or perhaps Carthak, to be raised as just another disgraced nobleman’s son, his name and his wealth and his legacy stripped from him. Always, carefully watched.”

Her eyes shone like silver in the night. “But I would not have killed him, not if I could have helped it. I am no child killer, Taybur Sibigat.”

Without thinking, he reached out with a hand, the tip of his gloved hand brushing the angle of her jaw, his thumb just touching her full bottom lip. “You are so very good at what you do,” he said, softly, “that you make me want to believe.”

A slight flush rose in her cheeks, her pupils dilating in the dim light.

“And I am so very tired that I find that I no longer care whether truth or lies spill from your honeyed tongue,” he whispered, leaning in close enough to smell the scent of her citrus perfume, to count the freckles dappling across the curve of her milky white throat.

“Oh, Taybur,” she breathed, bringing her other hand to caress his face. Something cold and hard pressed against the great vein in his throat. One move, and he would bleed himself out in moments all over her lap.

Distantly, Taybur thought that this should probably alarm him more than it was. Instead, he found something like delight curl up in the bottom of his stomach for the first time in days.

“Gods, you’re lovely when you’ve murder on the mind,” Taybur said, tenderly tracing the bow of her pink lips with his thumb as she smiled up at him. “Spring loaded forearm sheath?”

“A lady must have _some_ secrets of her own,” she said, before closing the gap and pressing her mouth against his. Startled, Taybur only felt the tip of her tongue against his, before she bit him, drawing blood.

He jerked back, stopping just in time before he cut himself on the blade held against his throat.

“You are even more tangled than a thorn bush, and twice as sharp,” he muttered, swiping his tongue over his mouth. He tasted copper and salt and a hint of a lady’s lip balm.

“And you, dear Captain,” Aly grinned up at him, his blood wet and crimson on her lips, “are _fun_.”

She untangled herself from him neatly, sweeping her blades away and slipping her veils on in one neat motion. “I don’t think this will be the last we’ll see of each other, dear.”

“No, I don’t think so either,” Taybur said and held his other hand up to the firelight. He caught the slight widening of her eyes before she controlled herself.

“Sneaky,” she said, admiring the reddish lock of hair in his hand. “Razor sewn in your glove?”

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” Taybur said with a crooked smile, tucking the lock away in a hidden pocket, where his badge used to guard his heart. “I’ll keep this as a little ah, insurance until our next meeting.”

She swept him a grandiose, perfect curtsy. “I hope it will be a little less bloody, dear Captain.”

Their eyes met in perfect understanding, and Taybur knew that the next they might meet, he would be holding the doors of the Palace open for her, or perhaps propping it open with his corpse.

“May He prevail and watch over us,” he murmured as she faded away into the night. He touched a hand to his still bleeding lip, then used the blood to mark a God’s circle on the stone bench, where Aly had sat just moments ago.

“ _Sorrow not, for all shall rest in the Peaceful Realms, in the loving embrace of the Black God._

“ _Forgive, forgive, forgive…_ ”


End file.
